It’s occurred to me that I stopped writing to you. To you, the undefined. A future I refused to hope for, written as a loss. Written as a missing piece. Phantom limbs that were never mine and missed with a desperation bordering on terminal. I threw faces and bodies into that well, living with the dissonance of accepting that it could very well be bottomless and the secret, secret hope. That fucking hope. You know what happens when you throw meat into a well? It rots. No one could survive that. Being thrown into that depthless place in me. Turns out ignoring hope doesn’t kill it. Turns out hope is irrelevant anyway, but it doesn’t really have to die to become useless and toxic. Meat in shallow water.

I miss writing to you. I miss loving you. Willing you into existence. It was easier. The absolute injustice of your non-existence superimposed over everyone who ever tried to love me. My loyalty to the standard, to the mettle and movement. It was unquestionable, my commitment to what I refused to give up on and refused to believe was possible. I came down from that tower, or climbed up from the well, whatever, I emerged. Living for the idea wasn’t living. Living walled off and reserved for a faceless love wasn’t living. Chasing shadows. But I’ve never learned how to let men be their best selves. Something about the way I move is wrong. I tried to be open to possibility and failed. I was still just looking for you.